I'm not smoking anything. I am drinking lots of coffee and taking ginko pills though.
I'm not going to waste 80 grand on a Sun system just so I can have fast SCSI drives and hot swap everything. If I needed something with that level of uptime and reliability, I'd invest in a fail-over clustering solution and STILL come out ahead on the money.
A professor where I work bought a V880 a few years ago because he somehow got the insane idea that it was a good choice for a webserver. He spend 40k of the state's money on that mistake. It took about six months to finally get the thing working right. I don't mean working right as a web-server, I mean working right from a basic hardware standpoint. The system would hard-lock for no apparent reason. It turns out one of the CPU boards was bad, but it took six months for Sun to figure that out. This same professor could have spent the exorbitant sum of 4k and got a Linux Intel/AMD based web-server that would have screamed, and if something was wrong I could have figured it out through standard troubleshooting techniques instead of having to have Barney Fife from Sun come out and stand over it while scratching his head.
If someone needs mainframe level load carrying capability on one system, then they would do well to take a good hard look at how they are doing things. More likely than not their need for that load carrying capability is indicative of a bottleneck that can be reduced or eliminated by altering the way they do things. Throwing bigger iron at a bad solution doesn't make it a good one.
Obviously if you're talking about Visa, the IRS, or any organization that truly requires uber-load carrying power, then a quad processor anything isn't going to do them much good, at least not all by itself. Last time I checked, Visa was running their operation primarily using SAS on IBM mainframes. If you need that kind of power, buy a mainframe, not a quad processor server.
Besides, its not like I can't build an opteron system that utilizes ECC ram (I'd imagine most of them are running it to begin with), ultra320 based raid arrays, and redundant power. Even the P-II had ECC cache so you can't tell me the operon doesn't, As for backplanes, I'd imagine that hypertransport is probably nothing to laugh at. I don't have any idea if it is faster or slower than what sun is using, but I doubt that Sun's speed is worth the price they are asking. The only things that the Sun system would have that the Opteron wouldn't is hot-swap CPU's and hot-swap PCI-100 busses. Being able to hot swap a CPU, while nice, is still not worth tens of thousands of dollars. As for the PCI bus, there's nothing to hot-swap because its built into the motherboard, not bridged off some other bus. Hot-swap PCI is out there, though not generally used. The PCI busses on typical Opteron server boards are generally a mixture of 32 and 64 bit slots, with the latter capable of 66mhz operation. If you need more throughput than that then that goes back to what I was saying before about bottlenecks. Not that I believe a Sun system would even give you the speed you need in the first place.
So, to make a long story short, I could easily build a very nice opteron system that would have most of the checklist features you've listed, or not require them in the first place, and still spend pennies on the dollar as compared to a comparable system from Sun.
Besides, I hear that Sun is shipping opteron based systems now anyway and that they plan to migrate over to the opteron because they can't pour enough money into the Sparc for it to keep up.
The SG-1 episodes are copyrighted. That means that the copyright holder has the right to say who can make copies of those shows and under what circumstances.
I agree that the current situation where copyright violations are treated as criminal offenses instead of civil offenses is absurd, but that doesn't mean that the underlying concept behind copyright law is in errror.
The purpose of copyrights is to encourage people to produce intellectual and artistic works for the ultimate benefit of everyone. Copyrights were originally limited in scope and duration. The idea was to make sure that authors and artists got something in return for their efforts. Unfortunately this system has been perverted by those whose interests are served by copyrights being both universal and eternal. Copyrights today are little more than a means by which corporations exact a private tax from the public for every possible use of anything they have a copyright on.
I don't think this situation will last forever. I think that one of these days someone somewhere is just going to start killing IP lawyers and greedy corporate pirates in spades.
Things are getting worse and when they get bad enough they'll start to get bloody. This is why the second amendment exists, so that if things ever completely go off the rails, the people will have the political power (which comes from the barrel of a gun after all) to overthrow the existing power structure and institute a new one more to their liking. I wonder if I'll live to see the first shots fired....
Ever wonder where stupid, ignorant, detrimental ideas like the FCC censoring the airwaves come from? That's right, from stupid, ignorant people whose continued existence on this planet is detrimental to anyone with a triple digit IQ. I say we neuter and castrate them so their offspring don't carry on in the family tradition and cause the same problems for our children and grandchildren.
The more time goes by and the older I get, the more certain I become that the average person is dumb as a sack of shit, not to mention superstitious, reactionary, and last but not least, easily led.
I wish there was some way of culling these people and snipping what needs to be snipped. Unfortunately any process or proceedure to do this created by human minds and administered by human hands is guaranteed to be a disaster. What we need is a naturally occuring process that cannot be tampered with or easily avoided. Traditionally man has benefitted from natural selection just like all other life on this planet. Unfortunately civilization has trumped that and has created an environment where really stupid and useless idiots are not only surviving, but are breeding in increasingly large numbers.
I really, really, really wish that nature would find some way to get rid of the dregs of humanity instead of letting them multiply and eventually find jobs working for the FCC, organized religion, and political extremist groups.
Too bad we can't do what that one planet in Douglas Adam's books did and trick all their morons into going off to colonize another planet. The fact that those colonists eventually found their way to earth is something I find less and less suprising with each passing day.
Shakespeare said kill all the lawyers. I say castrate all the cretins!
The question I have, which the actual article cleverly ignores, is whether or not he was doing something illegal or not. Advertising and promoting the sale of DVD's doesn't make up pirating them in the first place. Clearly the fact that gestapo has abused its powers in pursuing this case is a bad thing, but that isn't the same thing as the MPAA and the FBI ganging up on an innocent fan for their own amusement.
If this guy was hosting pirated copies of the show then he needs to be called to task for that. If the FBI abused the patriot act in the process of their investigation then they need to be called to task also. The FBI's wrong-doing doesn't make this guy right.
I'll not give him one thin dime for a "defense fund" if he is going to side-step the question of his guilt. I'd much rather put that money towards fighting the patriot act itself.
Anyone who believes that Baystar is SCO's biggest backer is forgetting about a little company in Redmond.
The things that SCO is doing are blatantly suicidal and correspond in time with activity on the part of others, such as Ken Brown. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but give me a break. I'd be willing to bet my balls that Microsoft is funding not only SCO, but also all the other groups that have all of a sudden started attacking Linux and open source in general.
They may not be alone either. The other player that I suspect is Sun. Linux has hit them FAR harder than it has Microsoft. For the most part Microsoft has limited the ability of Windows to penetrate the server market, at least without becoming a much better product. Sun on the other hand, has directly lost market share to Linux, and not just a little bit either.
Ever find it funny how SCO went out of their way to declare that Solaris was "ok?" This was said in multiple PR notices. This makes me very suspicious of Sun. They have a LOT more to lose than Microsoft does. Their bread and butter is the server room, not the secretary's desktop, and that is exactly where Linux is kicking butt and taking names. This isn't just a matter of Solaris vs. Linux either. Its a matter of Linux on commodity hardware vs. Solaris on fabulously expensive proprietary hardware. Sun is behind the eight-ball in both regards. When Sun wants 100k for a quad processor system when you can easily buy an far faster Opteron based quad processor system for 1/5th the price, it makes you wonder what it is that Sun is smoking and why they haven't passed the bong.
I personally think that Sun is toast. If all they sold was an OS, then things wouldn't be so bad for them. But as it is they are stuck having to field both an OS AND the hardware it runs on. This isn't something that a struggling company can do well.
There have NEVER been Linux systems in the computing commons. I should know, I used to work there as a site operator (aka the staff person in charge). What we did have were HP X-terms that connected to an HP PA-RISC system running HP-UX.
The good news is that Exceed and the Windows SSH client are installed on all of the PCs, so access to Unix and Linux are still just a few keystrokes away, provided of course that you know where to connect. The Macs have a similar configuration on them.
Just to make sure we're on the same page here, when you're talking about the computing sites, you are talking about the open ones run by IT right? Not some obscure lab that you only get access to if you're taking a class. I know for a fact that there are Linux systems in some classroom labs. There have never been Linux systems in any of the IT computing sites though.
Actually I have to disagree with you...sort of. Rights are not something that are granted by the state. Rather they are a pre-existing natural condition that the state is bound to observe and is granted certain powers for the purpose of protecting.
The rights laid out in the US constitution are not indulgences granted us by the all-powerful and eternal government. Those rights are detailed in the constitution because any government that didn't acknowledge and respect them would never retain its legitimacy for very long. A legitimate government being one whose power and authority is derived from the will and consent of those it governs.
One could argue that the current US governmnent does not fit that criteria, and most of the time I'd agree with that. The reason is because we as a people have ceased to take responsibility for our government. Our culture has devolved to the point where the average citizen doesn't understand the concept of natural rights. Instead they see the government as an entity that can do whatever it likes, and that we as its subjects had best do what it tells us to.
The fact that the state will confiscate certain types of propery if you do not pay a tax on them does not mean that the state has granted you the right to own that property. Rather the state has been granted the right to confiscate that property so that it will have the ability to enforce taxation. It is the state that is given license to do something, not you or I. Taxation is a sore point for many people, but the truth is that taxes are necessary, and as long as the state is not allowed to arbitrarily determine who gets taxed for what and how much, then taxes are ultimately beneficial.
Elvis is dead. The idea that some 3rd party should be able to milk his work more than a quarter century after his death is obscene.
I'm all for IP when it does what it is supposed to do, encourage the production of works that contribute to and enhance our culture. What I don't like, and I know I'm not alone here, is when the concepts of IP are extended beyond all reason and abused by greedy corporate buttpirates to line their own pockets. I hate greedy corporate assholes and while I understand that economic freedom means that there is no getting rid of them, just like intellectual and artistic freedom means we have to put up with crap like Jerry Springer, that doesn't mean we can't keep them on a short leash.
When I look at this website it reminds me of how much good the US has done around the world. If it wasn't for us there would not be a North Korea. There wouldn't be a South Korea either for that matter because the whole damned peninsula would be under the lead boot of a communist dictatorship. The DPRK should stand as a reminder of just how much evil there is in the world, and just how easily that evil can prevail.
It is because of us that South Korea is free, and God willing one of these days we'll bring freedom to ALL of Korea.
The problem isn't so much that there is a lot of fraud coming from these countries, but that the governments there do nothing to stop it. Rewarding a nation and a people who don't even have the wherewithal to police themselves is not the way to solve the problem. You solve the problem by making this lack of responsibility painful for them. If someone is being a screw up, you get behind them and kick them in the ass until they get their shit together. Refusing to do that because you're afraid someone might think you are being unfair doesn't do anyone any good.
Whether it be a nigerian 419 scam, or a scam escrow service, these kinds of operations exist because law enforcement in these places is on the take. It isn't just the scammers that are screwing you, its the police as well because they're getting a cut of the loot.
This film demonstrates just how desperate the loony left have become in this country. It is sheer propaganda and nothing more. I'm not a big fan of Bush, but then this movies isn't really about Bush. This movie is a weapon of propaganda in the ongoing ideological war being fought between leftists and conservatives. The leftists have been losing badly for some time now and this movie is the result of their desperation.
The far left has forsaken even the appearance of having anything reasonable to say. They have replaced honest interpretation of the facts with vitriol and attempts at emotional manipulation.
This is not the end for them, but it is the beginning of the end. The more loud and desperate they become, the more you can be certain they feel public opinion turning against them. The Soviet Union is gone and the remnants of its 5th column in this country are on their way out as well.
The VERY FIRST THING you should do after installing XP is TURN ITS FIREWALL ON and LEAVE IT ON unless it causes problems with one of the software packages you're trying to use. At the very least you should leave it on until the system is completely patched. Then you should make sure the system is set to automatically download and install updates without any user intervention. You can do this via the group policy editor. If you leave the firewall on, set the system to auto-update, and use a good anti-virus program (which should also be set to auto-update) then the only thing you have left to worry about is spyware/malware and end-user stupidity.
I have to deal with haxored systems at work all the time and every time I do a rebuild I yank the ethernet connection and make sure that the firewall is turned ON before I reconnect it to the network.
I would think that this would be common knowledge if not common sense. I can understand that you don't do windows support for a living, but how about doing a little research before you make a post to slashdot asking how to tie your own shoelaces? I expect that the only reason this made it past the moderators is because its inherently anti-MS.
When I first started to read your post I was worried that there was some worm that the XP firewall didn't block. I was shocked to learn that you hadn't even bothered to turn it on.
Maybe this will teach you rule number 1 when it comes to Windows security: You can never been too paranoid.
...is that everyone is different. When you try to create a one-size-fits-all solution you wind up with the computer equivalent of elevator music. In other words something that is usually not too offensive, but never really very good either.
The flip side of this is that when you try to create something that is hyper configurable you just end up confusing people. Consistency matters above almost everyting else. Your interface can be the most obtuse backassward piece of garbage made, but as long as it is consistent it will still be easier for people to work with than something that is functionally superior but inconsistent in its behavior.
The other problem is that interfaces that are easy to learn tend to be laborious to use, and those that are difficult to master tend to be very fast and efficient to use once mastered. This is why GUI interfaces are so cumbersome. There are tasks at which they excel, WYSIWYG applications for example. When you try to use them for other things, file management for example, you end up with something that works and can be mastered pretty easily, but which is forever bound by its inherent inefficiency.
The most annoying thing for me is the fact that so many people who should know how to use a computer don't. For them the question of which user interface they should use is dwarfed by the issues created by their own ignorance. I understand that not everyone is going to be an expert, but when a 20-something college student doesn't know the first thing about how to turn a computer on, it really makes me want to strangle them.
As to the eternal question of which interface is best, I offer this response: Whatever the hell you like best personally is what is the best one for you. Whatever another person likes best is what is best for them. Agreement between the two of you on what is best is not necessary. Neither is it even a good idea because the question itself is inherently subjective.
I work for the Fulton school of engineering at Arizona State University. There are several hundred Linux systems here, and I support almost all of them in one way or another. I've had people try to tell me that we should be using Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and even FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Sometimes this advice is based upon some genuine technical reason but all too often it is based upon ideology, especially where Debian is concerned. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to use a distro just because it follows the FSF/GNU flavor of political correctness. The day the unix world chooses ideology over technology is the day we are doomed.
The distributions we encourage our customers to use are Redhat/Fedora because this distro family is easy to support. Those other distros may or may not have real (technical) advantages over Redhat, but none of them scale as well as Redhat does. SuSE may scale equally well but due to Redhat's popularity we simply haven't had much call to try and work on SuSE systems. If Fedora proves to be unstable we may switch to SuSE, especially if it becomes more popular than Fedora.
The reason why we push Redhat/Fedora and not some other distro is because we don't want to have to install packages by hand or compile stuff from source all the time. Hand installs and compiles are great when you've got one system to support, but that just doesn't work when you're trying to support several hundred systems.
We have to look at what is the best solution for ALL of the systems at the same time, not just what solution would work best for one particular system.
Its clear that I'm writing one thing and you're reading another, or at best doing a bad job of reading between the lines. You presume I hold attitudes and opinions that I've done nothing to substantiate. Or maybe you're just pretending that you do because the actuality of what I've written is not so easily refuted, and that causes you emotional distress.
It is far easier for you to persist in believing the fantasy that I'm some thoughtless racist who sees a suicide bomber under every turban and who doesn't know the difference between an arab, a mexican, and sicilian. Sorry Charilie, but that just doesn't wash. Like I said before, I work in the engineering department of a tier 1 research university. I probably meet more people from the middle east every year than you will in your entire life. I don't assume that any of them are terrorists or even potential terrorists, but if I saw one doing something suspicious it would worry me a lot more than if I saw a non-muslim American doing it. Not because their skin is brown and not because there are no American terrorists, but because the propensity for your average American to be a terrorist is nothing compared to that of an islamic fundmentalist, most of whom happen to be from the middle east. If I saw someone who was green with purple polka dots who I knew to be a muslim doing something suspicious, I'd be just as as worried. This isn't an issue of color, but of culture and ideology. The reality of the current situation is that a faction within one of this world's cultures has declared war on western civilization, and only a fool would pretend that members of that culture are no more likely than the members of our own culture to be amongst our enemies in that war. Like it or not, you're going to find a lot more terrorists in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq than you ever will here. The fact that virtually all of them have brown skin is a coincidence, not a causal factor as you yourself have shown by pointing out John Walker.
The P.C. notion that we should pretend that everyone everywhere is the same as everyone everywhere else is just plain bunk. Calling a spade a spade is a valuable exercise in intellectually honesty, try it some time.
As for McVeigh, I hate to break it to you, but there is no vast right wing conspiracy of subversive gun-nuts looking to repeat what he did. If there were I think a gun-nut like myself would know about it. There is the plot to protect the second amendment to the death, but thats hardly a secret.
I know what you mean. I do believe that there are factions within our government that can definitely be characterized as fascist, but that doesn't mean the entire government is fascist. Trying to put the entire government under that label only makes the author look like a fool.
I also agree with you about the ACLU. I don't send them money anymore because they support racial discrimination and actively engage in religious persecution of christians. I'm not a christian myself, but I'm all too aware of why the left attacks it. Christianity is on the left's hit list because it is one of the cornerstones of "bougouise" society, which they want to do away with and replace with their socialist dystopia.
All one has to do is study the history of socialism (known as communism to some) for the motives and actions of the left become crystal clear. Some of the things they say and do are so predictable that it's almost like they're reading from a script. As bad as some members of the current administration are, they're a far cry from the mamzers that the left are trotting out for election day. When Tom Hayden gives a candidate his endorsement, you can be sure that they're just another neo-bolshevik nimrod.
The latter half of the 20th century was spent fighting the evils of the totalitarianism that socialism inevitably descends into. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money to promote the same thing here.
I wish there was a way to give money to the ACLU specifically to fight issues like this one. I've refrained from giving them money for almost two years now because I know that some of it would be spent to pursue loony-left agendas like religious repression and "affirmative action."
The ACLU has devolved into the legal branch of the democratic party, which itself devolved into the foreign branch of the Kremlin. Strangely this devolution continued and has even accelerated after the USSR collapsed. It just goes to show you that whenever there is a 5th column infiltration by your enemy, it can survive even after your enemy has otherwise beenn vanquished.
I remember what the ACLU used to be about, what it used to stand for. Once upon a time it was an organization that I admired and respected. Not anymore. I'm on their mailing list, so I get all of their promo, and some of it is almost as scary as anything the patriot act crowd has ever come up with. Not only do I get their promo, it seems like I get promo from every other loony-left organization. I never gave money to the Sierra Club, or the NAACP. I never contacted these groups in any way, yet I get mail from them regularly. Not to mention the subscription offers from The Nation (shudder). The fact that the ACLU would assume I was some dyed in the wool leftist just because I sent them some money in and of itself speaks volumes.
I believe in freedom. I believe in the ideals our country was founded upon. As such I see legislation like the "patriot" act for what it is, tyrrany. I'm far, far less worried about arabs crashing airplanes into skyscrapers than I am about Ashcroft and company destroying the legitimacy of our government by making it an enemy of the people. I'd love to find a group to fight this evil that I could feel good about supporting. As much as I'd love to support the ACLU in their fight against the "patriot" act and other such issues, I cannot in clear conscience give them money knowing the things that money might be used for instead.
If the ACLU will create a fund that is guaranteed to ONLY be spent fighting this issue, then I'll send the money today. But as long as there is the possibility that my money might be used to encourage racial discrimination or attack freedom of religion, then they'll never see a single cent from me.
It is situations like what you describe that gives the term "management" its almost obscene quality. There are circles where any root meaning of the word itself has been completely supplanted by its use as an expletive.
I'm just lucky that I don't work in such a place. If I had to put up with Machiavellian intrigue on a daily basis then I'm quite sure I'd change jobs.
Would it be harassment to call a white person a "nigger?" How about calling a gentile a "Kike?" or a Jew a "goy" for that matter? Actually the latter might be insulting to a jewish person but you get the point.
Like it or not, it is people from the middle east that we are currently having problems with. It is not their race or ethnicity that is at issue here, but a culture that hates the west because we are everything they are not and wish they could be. It just so happens that most of them look a lot alike and so this becomes an easy way to identify them. If all of them looked different then we'd use some other measurement in order to identify them.
I think you're letting your desire to be politically correct (which hopefully you'll outgrow one day) override your common sense.
If I saw someone from the middle east buying dynamite, I'd worry. I'd worry a lot. If I didn't know the difference between dynamite and a can opener, and I saw one on their kitchen counter I'd also worry. Clearly the landlord in this story didn't know anything about electronics and that was a big part of why this story is so silly. It would not have been so silly if the items in question really could have been used to make a bomb though would it? Now obviously it is not right or just to presume that everyone in the middle east is a terrorist, or that everyone here who is from that part of the world is a terrorist. If this was a story about how someone's landlord called the cops because he discovered that his tenant was from the middle east then I'd say he was a jackass and a fool. But when you add in the bit about said tenant doing low-level work on electronics that the landlord doesn't understand and the story becomes much different. Assuming of course that this tenant was in fact from the middle east. If he was from New Jersey then I'd say the landlord needs to remember to take his medication.
The thing you have to remember about Microsoft is that it, like almost any large company, is not monolithic. It is made up of a number of fiefdoms, some of which compete for the same resources (customers, money, prestige, etc) and are therefore at war with one another, the terms of which are defined by what is possible when both are part of a larger whole. This is why things like.NET made it to market. It was sold to the marketing department, the OS department, the Office development department, and the developer tools department (visual studio) with each one seeing it as something different.
1) I didn't know that Joe was a name that only white people were given at birth. If it makes you feel any better I'll say "Tryone Blow" instead. Also I didn't say that it was "OK" for an arab to be harassed, only that the poster didn't specify whether he was talking about an arab or not. That piece of information is critical because like it or not it wasn't people from Belgium who knocked down the world trade center. Terrorists from Sweden didn't float a raft full of explosives into one of our destroyers. Also I do hope you're smart enough to realize that I made the distinction between American Indians and "Native Americans" becuase if I didn't you can be sure there'd be some nimrod who'd think I was talking about Tonto. Just so you can't pretend to misunderstand me on this point any further, I'm going to explicitly define exactly what I mean by a native American. I mean anyone who was born here. I'd also include anyone who is a fully naturalized citizen, even though such a person is not truly native, they are for the sake of this argument. If someone grew up here, speaks english, and loves this country, then that is what I'm talking about.
2) Not all terrorists have brown skin, but the one's we're currently seeking to eliminate sure do. The unabomber and Timothy McVeigh were disturbed individuals. They acted alone, or at best as part of a very small conspiracy of similarly disturbed individuals. They were not part of an international religious mafia whose primary tenet is the death of all infidels.
I do of course realize that not all arabs or middle eastern people are terrorists. If they were then our problem would be a simple one to solve, we'd just nuke them till they glow and then shoot them in the dark.
Once again, I don't think that it is 'OK' to treat someone from the middle east as if they are a terrrorist without any reason, but I do believe that being aware of the possibility is necessary. I happen to work for the college of engineering at a large university where we have many students from the middle east. I have no reason to believe that any of them are terrorists. I do not think badly of them and I do not treat them badly. But if one of them were doing something that I felt was suspicious, I'd look a lot more closely at him or her than I would someone from Cleveland.
The real gripe that I have is that the original poster didn't tell anyone where his co-worker was from. That abscence of information is important in this context because whether he was from the middle east or not says a lot about how his landlord reacted. If I saw someone from that part of the world working on electronic equipment, I wouldn't think anything of it. But then again I've been working with electronics since I was seven and soldering since I was 10. Some idiot landlord on the other hand doesn't know a soldering iron from a curling iron. For him to be afraid that his tenet from the UAE is a terrorist is not all the far fetched. It is far fetched if that tenet is and American (and yes I mean of any color).
I'm not talking about the police here. I'm talking about the FBI and other organizations under the umbrella of the "Justice" department.
In case you didn't know it, the justice department has been working for a long time to undermine the basic protections that we are guaranteed under the constitution. The "patriot" act is just their latest scam. If it were up to them you and I wouldn't have any rights. Instead we would have privileges, and those would vary from person to person at the whim of the local gestapo chief.
As for crime, I'm a card carrying member of the NRA. It is highly unlikely that I'll ever be the victim of a violent crime. I don't like to toot my own horn, but in a stand up fight between me and some criminal punk, I'd put my money on me.
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I'm not smoking anything. I am drinking lots of coffee and taking ginko pills though.
I'm not going to waste 80 grand on a Sun system just so I can have fast SCSI drives and hot swap everything. If I needed something with that level of uptime and reliability, I'd invest in a fail-over clustering solution and STILL come out ahead on the money.
A professor where I work bought a V880 a few years ago because he somehow got the insane idea that it was a good choice for a webserver. He spend 40k of the state's money on that mistake. It took about six months to finally get the thing working right. I don't mean working right as a web-server, I mean working right from a basic hardware standpoint. The system would hard-lock for no apparent reason. It turns out one of the CPU boards was bad, but it took six months for Sun to figure that out. This same professor could have spent the exorbitant sum of 4k and got a Linux Intel/AMD based web-server that would have screamed, and if something was wrong I could have figured it out through standard troubleshooting techniques instead of having to have Barney Fife from Sun come out and stand over it while scratching his head.
If someone needs mainframe level load carrying capability on one system, then they would do well to take a good hard look at how they are doing things. More likely than not their need for that load carrying capability is indicative of a bottleneck that can be reduced or eliminated by altering the way they do things. Throwing bigger iron at a bad solution doesn't make it a good one.
Obviously if you're talking about Visa, the IRS, or any organization that truly requires uber-load carrying power, then a quad processor anything isn't going to do them much good, at least not all by itself. Last time I checked, Visa was running their operation primarily using SAS on IBM mainframes. If you need that kind of power, buy a mainframe, not a quad processor server.
Besides, its not like I can't build an opteron system that utilizes ECC ram (I'd imagine most of them are running it to begin with), ultra320 based raid arrays, and redundant power. Even the P-II had ECC cache so you can't tell me the operon doesn't, As for backplanes, I'd imagine that hypertransport is probably nothing to laugh at. I don't have any idea if it is faster or slower than what sun is using, but I doubt that Sun's speed is worth the price they are asking. The only things that the Sun system would have that the Opteron wouldn't is hot-swap CPU's and hot-swap PCI-100 busses. Being able to hot swap a CPU, while nice, is still not worth tens of thousands of dollars. As for the PCI bus, there's nothing to hot-swap because its built into the motherboard, not bridged off some other bus. Hot-swap PCI is out there, though not generally used. The PCI busses on typical Opteron server boards are generally a mixture of 32 and 64 bit slots, with the latter capable of 66mhz operation. If you need more throughput than that then that goes back to what I was saying before about bottlenecks. Not that I believe a Sun system would even give you the speed you need in the first place.
So, to make a long story short, I could easily build a very nice opteron system that would have most of the checklist features you've listed, or not require them in the first place, and still spend pennies on the dollar as compared to a comparable system from Sun.
Besides, I hear that Sun is shipping opteron based systems now anyway and that they plan to migrate over to the opteron because they can't pour enough money into the Sparc for it to keep up.
The SG-1 episodes are copyrighted. That means that the copyright holder has the right to say who can make copies of those shows and under what circumstances.
I agree that the current situation where copyright violations are treated as criminal offenses instead of civil offenses is absurd, but that doesn't mean that the underlying concept behind copyright law is in errror.
The purpose of copyrights is to encourage people to produce intellectual and artistic works for the ultimate benefit of everyone. Copyrights were originally limited in scope and duration. The idea was to make sure that authors and artists got something in return for their efforts. Unfortunately this system has been perverted by those whose interests are served by copyrights being both universal and eternal. Copyrights today are little more than a means by which corporations exact a private tax from the public for every possible use of anything they have a copyright on.
I don't think this situation will last forever. I think that one of these days someone somewhere is just going to start killing IP lawyers and greedy corporate pirates in spades.
Things are getting worse and when they get bad enough they'll start to get bloody. This is why the second amendment exists, so that if things ever completely go off the rails, the people will have the political power (which comes from the barrel of a gun after all) to overthrow the existing power structure and institute a new one more to their liking. I wonder if I'll live to see the first shots fired....
Ever wonder where stupid, ignorant, detrimental ideas like the FCC censoring the airwaves come from? That's right, from stupid, ignorant people whose continued existence on this planet is detrimental to anyone with a triple digit IQ. I say we neuter and castrate them so their offspring don't carry on in the family tradition and cause the same problems for our children and grandchildren.
The more time goes by and the older I get, the more certain I become that the average person is dumb as a sack of shit, not to mention superstitious, reactionary, and last but not least, easily led.
I wish there was some way of culling these people and snipping what needs to be snipped. Unfortunately any process or proceedure to do this created by human minds and administered by human hands is guaranteed to be a disaster. What we need is a naturally occuring process that cannot be tampered with or easily avoided. Traditionally man has benefitted from natural selection just like all other life on this planet. Unfortunately civilization has trumped that and has created an environment where really stupid and useless idiots are not only surviving, but are breeding in increasingly large numbers.
I really, really, really wish that nature would find some way to get rid of the dregs of humanity instead of letting them multiply and eventually find jobs working for the FCC, organized religion, and political extremist groups.
Too bad we can't do what that one planet in Douglas Adam's books did and trick all their morons into going off to colonize another planet. The fact that those colonists eventually found their way to earth is something I find less and less suprising with each passing day.
Shakespeare said kill all the lawyers. I say castrate all the cretins!
The question I have, which the actual article cleverly ignores, is whether or not he was doing something illegal or not. Advertising and promoting the sale of DVD's doesn't make up pirating them in the first place. Clearly the fact that gestapo has abused its powers in pursuing this case is a bad thing, but that isn't the same thing as the MPAA and the FBI ganging up on an innocent fan for their own amusement.
If this guy was hosting pirated copies of the show then he needs to be called to task for that. If the FBI abused the patriot act in the process of their investigation then they need to be called to task also. The FBI's wrong-doing doesn't make this guy right.
I'll not give him one thin dime for a "defense fund" if he is going to side-step the question of his guilt. I'd much rather put that money towards fighting the patriot act itself.
Lee
Anyone who believes that Baystar is SCO's biggest backer is forgetting about a little company in Redmond.
The things that SCO is doing are blatantly suicidal and correspond in time with activity on the part of others, such as Ken Brown. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but give me a break. I'd be willing to bet my balls that Microsoft is funding not only SCO, but also all the other groups that have all of a sudden started attacking Linux and open source in general.
They may not be alone either. The other player that I suspect is Sun. Linux has hit them FAR harder than it has Microsoft. For the most part Microsoft has limited the ability of Windows to penetrate the server market, at least without becoming a much better product. Sun on the other hand, has directly lost market share to Linux, and not just a little bit either.
Ever find it funny how SCO went out of their way to declare that Solaris was "ok?" This was said in multiple PR notices. This makes me very suspicious of Sun. They have a LOT more to lose than Microsoft does. Their bread and butter is the server room, not the secretary's desktop, and that is exactly where Linux is kicking butt and taking names. This isn't just a matter of Solaris vs. Linux either. Its a matter of Linux on commodity hardware vs. Solaris on fabulously expensive proprietary hardware. Sun is behind the eight-ball in both regards. When Sun wants 100k for a quad processor system when you can easily buy an far faster Opteron based quad processor system for 1/5th the price, it makes you wonder what it is that Sun is smoking and why they haven't passed the bong.
I personally think that Sun is toast. If all they sold was an OS, then things wouldn't be so bad for them. But as it is they are stuck having to field both an OS AND the hardware it runs on. This isn't something that a struggling company can do well.
There have NEVER been Linux systems in the computing commons. I should know, I used to work there as a site operator (aka the staff person in charge). What we did have were HP X-terms that connected to an HP PA-RISC system running HP-UX.
The good news is that Exceed and the Windows SSH client are installed on all of the PCs, so access to Unix and Linux are still just a few keystrokes away, provided of course that you know where to connect. The Macs have a similar configuration on them.
Just to make sure we're on the same page here, when you're talking about the computing sites, you are talking about the open ones run by IT right? Not some obscure lab that you only get access to if you're taking a class. I know for a fact that there are Linux systems in some classroom labs. There have never been Linux systems in any of the IT computing sites though.
Actually I have to disagree with you...sort of. Rights are not something that are granted by the state. Rather they are a pre-existing natural condition that the state is bound to observe and is granted certain powers for the purpose of protecting.
The rights laid out in the US constitution are not indulgences granted us by the all-powerful and eternal government. Those rights are detailed in the constitution because any government that didn't acknowledge and respect them would never retain its legitimacy for very long. A legitimate government being one whose power and authority is derived from the will and consent of those it governs.
One could argue that the current US governmnent does not fit that criteria, and most of the time I'd agree with that. The reason is because we as a people have ceased to take responsibility for our government. Our culture has devolved to the point where the average citizen doesn't understand the concept of natural rights. Instead they see the government as an entity that can do whatever it likes, and that we as its subjects had best do what it tells us to.
The fact that the state will confiscate certain types of propery if you do not pay a tax on them does not mean that the state has granted you the right to own that property. Rather the state has been granted the right to confiscate that property so that it will have the ability to enforce taxation. It is the state that is given license to do something, not you or I. Taxation is a sore point for many people, but the truth is that taxes are necessary, and as long as the state is not allowed to arbitrarily determine who gets taxed for what and how much, then taxes are ultimately beneficial.
Elvis is dead. The idea that some 3rd party should be able to milk his work more than a quarter century after his death is obscene.
I'm all for IP when it does what it is supposed to do, encourage the production of works that contribute to and enhance our culture. What I don't like, and I know I'm not alone here, is when the concepts of IP are extended beyond all reason and abused by greedy corporate buttpirates to line their own pockets. I hate greedy corporate assholes and while I understand that economic freedom means that there is no getting rid of them, just like intellectual and artistic freedom means we have to put up with crap like Jerry Springer, that doesn't mean we can't keep them on a short leash.
Lee
When I look at this website it reminds me of how much good the US has done around the world. If it wasn't for us there would not be a North Korea. There wouldn't be a South Korea either for that matter because the whole damned peninsula would be under the lead boot of a communist dictatorship. The DPRK should stand as a reminder of just how much evil there is in the world, and just how easily that evil can prevail.
It is because of us that South Korea is free, and God willing one of these days we'll bring freedom to ALL of Korea.
Lee
The problem isn't so much that there is a lot of fraud coming from these countries, but that the governments there do nothing to stop it. Rewarding a nation and a people who don't even have the wherewithal to police themselves is not the way to solve the problem. You solve the problem by making this lack of responsibility painful for them. If someone is being a screw up, you get behind them and kick them in the ass until they get their shit together. Refusing to do that because you're afraid someone might think you are being unfair doesn't do anyone any good.
Whether it be a nigerian 419 scam, or a scam escrow service, these kinds of operations exist because law enforcement in these places is on the take. It isn't just the scammers that are screwing you, its the police as well because they're getting a cut of the loot.
This film demonstrates just how desperate the loony left have become in this country. It is sheer propaganda and nothing more. I'm not a big fan of Bush, but then this movies isn't really about Bush. This movie is a weapon of propaganda in the ongoing ideological war being fought between leftists and conservatives. The leftists have been losing badly for some time now and this movie is the result of their desperation.
The far left has forsaken even the appearance of having anything reasonable to say. They have replaced honest interpretation of the facts with vitriol and attempts at emotional manipulation.
This is not the end for them, but it is the beginning of the end. The more loud and desperate they become, the more you can be certain they feel public opinion turning against them. The Soviet Union is gone and the remnants of its 5th column in this country are on their way out as well.
Lee
Someone hasn't been doing their assigned reading....
3 4/ qid=1088002596/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-9622810-13430 29
0 00 07KQA3/qid=1088002682/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-962281 0-1343029?v=glance&s=dvd
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/04515249
or if that is too much work:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B
Anyone who doesn't understand the literary reference to the Ministry of Truth shouldn't be opening their mouth unless they enjoy eating their foot.
The VERY FIRST THING you should do after installing XP is TURN ITS FIREWALL ON and LEAVE IT ON unless it causes problems with one of the software packages you're trying to use. At the very least you should leave it on until the system is completely patched. Then you should make sure the system is set to automatically download and install updates without any user intervention. You can do this via the group policy editor. If you leave the firewall on, set the system to auto-update, and use a good anti-virus program (which should also be set to auto-update) then the only thing you have left to worry about is spyware/malware and end-user stupidity.
I have to deal with haxored systems at work all the time and every time I do a rebuild I yank the ethernet connection and make sure that the firewall is turned ON before I reconnect it to the network.
I would think that this would be common knowledge if not common sense. I can understand that you don't do windows support for a living, but how about doing a little research before you make a post to slashdot asking how to tie your own shoelaces? I expect that the only reason this made it past the moderators is because its inherently anti-MS.
When I first started to read your post I was worried that there was some worm that the XP firewall didn't block. I was shocked to learn that you hadn't even bothered to turn it on.
Maybe this will teach you rule number 1 when it comes to Windows security: You can never been too paranoid.
Lee
Implementing a spec may or may not be art, but coming up with that spec in the first place sure is.
Why do you think all the monkey work is being exported to bangalore while the actual design and specification process is being done here?
Lee
...is that everyone is different. When you try to create a one-size-fits-all solution you wind up with the computer equivalent of elevator music. In other words something that is usually not too offensive, but never really very good either.
The flip side of this is that when you try to create something that is hyper configurable you just end up confusing people. Consistency matters above almost everyting else. Your interface can be the most obtuse backassward piece of garbage made, but as long as it is consistent it will still be easier for people to work with than something that is functionally superior but inconsistent in its behavior.
The other problem is that interfaces that are easy to learn tend to be laborious to use, and those that are difficult to master tend to be very fast and efficient to use once mastered. This is why GUI interfaces are so cumbersome. There are tasks at which they excel, WYSIWYG applications for example. When you try to use them for other things, file management for example, you end up with something that works and can be mastered pretty easily, but which is forever bound by its inherent inefficiency.
The most annoying thing for me is the fact that so many people who should know how to use a computer don't. For them the question of which user interface they should use is dwarfed by the issues created by their own ignorance. I understand that not everyone is going to be an expert, but when a 20-something college student doesn't know the first thing about how to turn a computer on, it really makes me want to strangle them.
As to the eternal question of which interface is best, I offer this response: Whatever the hell you like best personally is what is the best one for you. Whatever another person likes best is what is best for them. Agreement between the two of you on what is best is not necessary. Neither is it even a good idea because the question itself is inherently subjective.
Lee
I work for the Fulton school of engineering at Arizona State University. There are several hundred Linux systems here, and I support almost all of them in one way or another. I've had people try to tell me that we should be using Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and even FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Sometimes this advice is based upon some genuine technical reason but all too often it is based upon ideology, especially where Debian is concerned. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to use a distro just because it follows the FSF/GNU flavor of political correctness. The day the unix world chooses ideology over technology is the day we are doomed.
The distributions we encourage our customers to use are Redhat/Fedora because this distro family is easy to support. Those other distros may or may not have real (technical) advantages over Redhat, but none of them scale as well as Redhat does. SuSE may scale equally well but due to Redhat's popularity we simply haven't had much call to try and work on SuSE systems. If Fedora proves to be unstable we may switch to SuSE, especially if it becomes more popular than Fedora.
The reason why we push Redhat/Fedora and not some other distro is because we don't want to have to install packages by hand or compile stuff from source all the time. Hand installs and compiles are great when you've got one system to support, but that just doesn't work when you're trying to support several hundred systems.
We have to look at what is the best solution for ALL of the systems at the same time, not just what solution would work best for one particular system.
Lee
Its clear that I'm writing one thing and you're reading another, or at best doing a bad job of reading between the lines. You presume I hold attitudes and opinions that I've done nothing to substantiate. Or maybe you're just pretending that you do because the actuality of what I've written is not so easily refuted, and that causes you emotional distress.
It is far easier for you to persist in believing the fantasy that I'm some thoughtless racist who sees a suicide bomber under every turban and who doesn't know the difference between an arab, a mexican, and sicilian. Sorry Charilie, but that just doesn't wash. Like I said before, I work in the engineering department of a tier 1 research university. I probably meet more people from the middle east every year than you will in your entire life. I don't assume that any of them are terrorists or even potential terrorists, but if I saw one doing something suspicious it would worry me a lot more than if I saw a non-muslim American doing it. Not because their skin is brown and not because there are no American terrorists, but because the propensity for your average American to be a terrorist is nothing compared to that of an islamic fundmentalist, most of whom happen to be from the middle east. If I saw someone who was green with purple polka dots who I knew to be a muslim doing something suspicious, I'd be just as as worried. This isn't an issue of color, but of culture and ideology. The reality of the current situation is that a faction within one of this world's cultures has declared war on western civilization, and only a fool would pretend that members of that culture are no more likely than the members of our own culture to be amongst our enemies in that war. Like it or not, you're going to find a lot more terrorists in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq than you ever will here. The fact that virtually all of them have brown skin is a coincidence, not a causal factor as you yourself have shown by pointing out John Walker.
The P.C. notion that we should pretend that everyone everywhere is the same as everyone everywhere else is just plain bunk. Calling a spade a spade is a valuable exercise in intellectually honesty, try it some time.
As for McVeigh, I hate to break it to you, but there is no vast right wing conspiracy of subversive gun-nuts looking to repeat what he did. If there were I think a gun-nut like myself would know about it. There is the plot to protect the second amendment to the death, but thats hardly a secret.
I know what you mean. I do believe that there are factions within our government that can definitely be characterized as fascist, but that doesn't mean the entire government is fascist. Trying to put the entire government under that label only makes the author look like a fool.
I also agree with you about the ACLU. I don't send them money anymore because they support racial discrimination and actively engage in religious persecution of christians. I'm not a christian myself, but I'm all too aware of why the left attacks it. Christianity is on the left's hit list because it is one of the cornerstones of "bougouise" society, which they want to do away with and replace with their socialist dystopia.
All one has to do is study the history of socialism (known as communism to some) for the motives and actions of the left become crystal clear. Some of the things they say and do are so predictable that it's almost like they're reading from a script. As bad as some members of the current administration are, they're a far cry from the mamzers that the left are trotting out for election day. When Tom Hayden gives a candidate his endorsement, you can be sure that they're just another neo-bolshevik nimrod.
The latter half of the 20th century was spent fighting the evils of the totalitarianism that socialism inevitably descends into. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money to promote the same thing here.
I wish there was a way to give money to the ACLU specifically to fight issues like this one. I've refrained from giving them money for almost two years now because I know that some of it would be spent to pursue loony-left agendas like religious repression and "affirmative action."
The ACLU has devolved into the legal branch of the democratic party, which itself devolved into the foreign branch of the Kremlin. Strangely this devolution continued and has even accelerated after the USSR collapsed. It just goes to show you that whenever there is a 5th column infiltration by your enemy, it can survive even after your enemy has otherwise beenn vanquished.
I remember what the ACLU used to be about, what it used to stand for. Once upon a time it was an organization that I admired and respected. Not anymore. I'm on their mailing list, so I get all of their promo, and some of it is almost as scary as anything the patriot act crowd has ever come up with. Not only do I get their promo, it seems like I get promo from every other loony-left organization. I never gave money to the Sierra Club, or the NAACP. I never contacted these groups in any way, yet I get mail from them regularly. Not to mention the subscription offers from The Nation (shudder). The fact that the ACLU would assume I was some dyed in the wool leftist just because I sent them some money in and of itself speaks volumes.
I believe in freedom. I believe in the ideals our country was founded upon. As such I see legislation like the "patriot" act for what it is, tyrrany. I'm far, far less worried about arabs crashing airplanes into skyscrapers than I am about Ashcroft and company destroying the legitimacy of our government by making it an enemy of the people. I'd love to find a group to fight this evil that I could feel good about supporting. As much as I'd love to support the ACLU in their fight against the "patriot" act and other such issues, I cannot in clear conscience give them money knowing the things that money might be used for instead.
If the ACLU will create a fund that is guaranteed to ONLY be spent fighting this issue, then I'll send the money today. But as long as there is the possibility that my money might be used to encourage racial discrimination or attack freedom of religion, then they'll never see a single cent from me.
It is situations like what you describe that gives the term "management" its almost obscene quality. There are circles where any root meaning of the word itself has been completely supplanted by its use as an expletive.
I'm just lucky that I don't work in such a place. If I had to put up with Machiavellian intrigue on a daily basis then I'm quite sure I'd change jobs.
Another characteristic of large companies is that we can do things in 3 months that we cannot do in a year, or two years or five years.
I do of course understand what you were trying to say, but it is funny nonetheless.
Would it be harassment to call a white person a "nigger?" How about calling a gentile a "Kike?" or a Jew a "goy" for that matter? Actually the latter might be insulting to a jewish person but you get the point.
Like it or not, it is people from the middle east that we are currently having problems with. It is not their race or ethnicity that is at issue here, but a culture that hates the west because we are everything they are not and wish they could be. It just so happens that most of them look a lot alike and so this becomes an easy way to identify them. If all of them looked different then we'd use some other measurement in order to identify them.
I think you're letting your desire to be politically correct (which hopefully you'll outgrow one day) override your common sense.
If I saw someone from the middle east buying dynamite, I'd worry. I'd worry a lot. If I didn't know the difference between dynamite and a can opener, and I saw one on their kitchen counter I'd also worry. Clearly the landlord in this story didn't know anything about electronics and that was a big part of why this story is so silly. It would not have been so silly if the items in question really could have been used to make a bomb though would it? Now obviously it is not right or just to presume that everyone in the middle east is a terrorist, or that everyone here who is from that part of the world is a terrorist. If this was a story about how someone's landlord called the cops because he discovered that his tenant was from the middle east then I'd say he was a jackass and a fool. But when you add in the bit about said tenant doing low-level work on electronics that the landlord doesn't understand and the story becomes much different. Assuming of course that this tenant was in fact from the middle east. If he was from New Jersey then I'd say the landlord needs to remember to take his medication.
The thing you have to remember about Microsoft is that it, like almost any large company, is not monolithic. It is made up of a number of fiefdoms, some of which compete for the same resources (customers, money, prestige, etc) and are therefore at war with one another, the terms of which are defined by what is possible when both are part of a larger whole. This is why things like .NET made it to market. It was sold to the marketing department, the OS department, the Office development department, and the developer tools department (visual studio) with each one seeing it as something different.
1) I didn't know that Joe was a name that only white people were given at birth. If it makes you feel any better I'll say "Tryone Blow" instead. Also I didn't say that it was "OK" for an arab to be harassed, only that the poster didn't specify whether he was talking about an arab or not. That piece of information is critical because like it or not it wasn't people from Belgium who knocked down the world trade center. Terrorists from Sweden didn't float a raft full of explosives into one of our destroyers. Also I do hope you're smart enough to realize that I made the distinction between American Indians and "Native Americans" becuase if I didn't you can be sure there'd be some nimrod who'd think I was talking about Tonto. Just so you can't pretend to misunderstand me on this point any further, I'm going to explicitly define exactly what I mean by a native American. I mean anyone who was born here. I'd also include anyone who is a fully naturalized citizen, even though such a person is not truly native, they are for the sake of this argument. If someone grew up here, speaks english, and loves this country, then that is what I'm talking about.
2) Not all terrorists have brown skin, but the one's we're currently seeking to eliminate sure do. The unabomber and Timothy McVeigh were disturbed individuals. They acted alone, or at best as part of a very small conspiracy of similarly disturbed individuals. They were not part of an international religious mafia whose primary tenet is the death of all infidels.
I do of course realize that not all arabs or middle eastern people are terrorists. If they were then our problem would be a simple one to solve, we'd just nuke them till they glow and then shoot them in the dark.
Once again, I don't think that it is 'OK' to treat someone from the middle east as if they are a terrrorist without any reason, but I do believe that being aware of the possibility is necessary. I happen to work for the college of engineering at a large university where we have many students from the middle east. I have no reason to believe that any of them are terrorists. I do not think badly of them and I do not treat them badly. But if one of them were doing something that I felt was suspicious, I'd look a lot more closely at him or her than I would someone from Cleveland.
The real gripe that I have is that the original poster didn't tell anyone where his co-worker was from. That abscence of information is important in this context because whether he was from the middle east or not says a lot about how his landlord reacted. If I saw someone from that part of the world working on electronic equipment, I wouldn't think anything of it. But then again I've been working with electronics since I was seven and soldering since I was 10. Some idiot landlord on the other hand doesn't know a soldering iron from a curling iron. For him to be afraid that his tenet from the UAE is a terrorist is not all the far fetched. It is far fetched if that tenet is and American (and yes I mean of any color).
I'm not talking about the police here. I'm talking about the FBI and other organizations under the umbrella of the "Justice" department.
In case you didn't know it, the justice department has been working for a long time to undermine the basic protections that we are guaranteed under the constitution. The "patriot" act is just their latest scam. If it were up to them you and I wouldn't have any rights. Instead we would have privileges, and those would vary from person to person at the whim of the local gestapo chief.
As for crime, I'm a card carrying member of the NRA. It is highly unlikely that I'll ever be the victim of a violent crime. I don't like to toot my own horn, but in a stand up fight between me and some criminal punk, I'd put my money on me.